We have all done it. The latest was Elletu. It was after my fall a year ago that I told the other BVG's, "We must never fall again. We are getting too old for this. Things are going to start breaking." Yet, two times in the following six months I broke my own rule and fell, with great gusto I might add. No, I haven't broken anything yet, but my sciatica? Lordy, lordy, I wish I could go back to forty!
Alas, yesterday I took the time to sit down and note what turned out to be my Top Twelve Falls--yes an even dozen! These falls were dramatic enough to warrant their own name and own story. I even have two 'Honorable Mention Near-Falls.' When they are done reading my stories, I do believe my Sisters will show up at my door with a wheelchair, walker, pain medication and offers to take over cleaning my big two-story house for me. (I can dream, can't I?)
Future posts will be, in this order:
One Flew Over the Basement Stairs
Snow White Falling on Cedar
Down, Down and Away
The Accidental Tourist
The Latte Show
Up the Downed Suitcase
Hawaii K-0
Things That Go Bump in the Night
Pop Goes the Damsel
Not-So-Secret Garden
Slip Slidin' Away
Brokeknee Mountain (or, "Help! I've Fallen, and I Can't Get Up!"
California Texting
Massacre at Wounded Knee
You will read how the two-year-old me fell from near the top of my basement stairs, head first onto the cement floor, landing in the hospital with a concussion. You will learn what can cause a large circular bruise that changes to every color of the rainbow, but in a place no one wants to look. Picture the humiliation as a broken piano stool hurled me to the floor in front of 60 fellow teenagers. Relive with me the pain of falling on a hot manhole cover marked Boston Steam just after starting our family trek on the Freedom Trail. Be embarrassed for me when, in full view of other patrons inside a coffee shop, I fall off the sidewalk, flat on my face. But cheer with me when you realize I did so without ever spilling a drop of the two lattes I was holding. Cringe with me as I fall over a suitcase on my family room floor, my daughter's laundry in my arms, and as I fall walking down a steep hill near my Kailua home in the dark early morning hours. Picture that large, loaded bread cart slamming in to me as I stood with my back to it, reading cards in my local Kailua Safeway. What a shock. Gasp with me as I describe a shocking, painful moment in my local Farm Fresh grocery in Chesapeake, VA, when I slip dramatically in the spewed stickiness of the contents of an opened two liter Sprite bottle. I guess it was a game of "How Low Can You Go?" For the record, I got as low as you can go without sprawling all the way down on the floor. Imagine my arms overloaded with yard waste as I walk up the uneven steps in the back yard of our Manchester rental, after eight full days of trying to clean out the overgrown mess of a yard we inherited. Then imagine my fall forward, all within full view of my new neighbors behind me, people I had not met. One thing I don't want you to picture is what happened to me as I made a split-second decision at that same house to put my left foot in my big bathtub so I could reach in and clean the tiny black specks on the bottom of the white tub. Too bad I had Scrubbing Bubbles residue left on the bottom of my feet after having just scrubbed my shower floor with the cleaner. Too bad I was naked. No, no, no---don't picture this! Please! I have learned that just because you hear some water running under a bridge is no reason to go running in sandals to see the water under the bridge. True, it's all water under the bridge now, but I learned a valuable lesson one day a year ago up at Crystal Mountain. I found out that just because you hear some water running under a bridge, that is not a good reason to go running to try to see it. I also learned a horrible fact: Now, when I fall, I can't get myself back up again! The police warn us not to text and drive. I shouldn't text and try to sit down at the same time, not when the chair I'm trying to sit on is taller than I am and is on casters. And may I never again get up on a step stool to get a large black-topped storage bin out of a closet, then step down to walk straight toward the door to take the bin to another closet in another room without checking to make sure my Pack & Play isn't in my way on the floor (where I left it moments earlier). This was a recipe for disaster. I am glad to report that nothing broke, not even the ceramic lamp I knocked over on my way down, nor the cabinet I knocked over, nor the contents of the bin, not even my knee, but honestly, I don't think my knee will ever be the same. Rejoice with me when you realize I had the presence of mind to land primarily on my right knee, as opposed to my left knee, which is what took the brunt of my fall on that bridge some five months earlier.
This is why I don't jump up on chairs anymore. This is why Julene, our BVG massage therapist tells me not to iron or vacuum, at least not without some special techniques for people like me. This is why, when I stand up after sitting, I don't just take off walking but rather take a few moments to straighten out a few things, and I'm not talking about my purse, my clothes or my coat. This is why I ask for a table instead of a booth at a restaurant. This is why I don't go out walking by myself anymore. This is why I dream of living in a one-story house. This is why I don't walk as fast as I used to.
Now, about that wheelchair..................................
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